By Trudy Mbaluku
Kenya experiences the loss of a sizeable number of highly skilled health professionals including doctors and nurses, who migrate to developed countries.
It costs about Ksh4.2 million to train a doctor but when health professionals emigrate, Kenya loses far more than the cost society incurs to educate them. Other losses include loss of health services, trainers and researchers.
The Chair of Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union, Dr Victor Ng’ani, says 80 per cent of doctors leave the public sector by the third year of their career to go abroad or join private practice.
Dr Ng’ani shared some of the reasons that make doctors emigrate.